March 15, 2009

Here’s an early 1940s photograph of my grandfather. When my grandmother was alive she was fond of telling me I was her favorite grandchild because we looked exactly alike. He died young, at 36, of heart failure, when my mother was only 8 years old –

my grandfather, early 1940s

I do treasure this photograph! The simplicity of just the chair, the subject and the background is stunning. My grandfather was a beautiful man. For some reason when I look at this picture, I imagine the scope of his life so vividly…his hardships, his triumphs, and his grief, knowing he would leave four small children behind with my grandmother.

As you know by now, I adore vintage photography and I’m a believer in sharing those restored and transferred images. With both the restored and original files on CD, I offer a DVD slideshow of the photographs in motion, which makes a terrific gift! Check out a slideshow of my parents 1966 Wedding.

With Easter, Passover, Mother’s Day, & Father’s Day holidays approaching, now is a great time to sort out your old photographs and finally commit them to a digital format. Your vintage photographs are most likely the only copies you own. They’re hidden away in an album or keepsake box somewhere and rarely make an appearance….kinda like the ‘good china’ in the china cabinet! Well, I say transfer them now! Share them with your loved ones.

January 28, 2009

The photos in my parents’ wedding album is my only proof they were once young.

All 25 of them.

The pair have no photos of themselves prior to their wedding. They are practical, thrifty survivalists…a mentality borne from their poor Caribbean upbringing. Only bare-bone necessities, please! They never saw the need for photos except on major occasions. Like weddings.

Many years later they regret not taking more photographs. I always seem to scramble for remnants of torn photos to piece together their moments. The scarcity of these images surely fuelled my obsession with vintage photographs. It’s one of the reasons I feel compelled to create still and moving images today.

On a recent visit to my parents’ house, I noticed their lovely wedding album was virtually destroyed. The wind-up music box rusted, Vodpod videos no longer available.

the vellum overlays ripped, the rubber-cemented photos were discolored, speckled & torn, and the silver-threaded box it was showcased in was duct-taped (apparently my father’s solution for repair). I knew I had to revive that album and give those photos a new kind of life. My parents, the non-sentimentalists they are, couldn’t care less when I carted their album off to perform surgery on it.

After the photo restoration, the response to their wedding photos, (all 25 of them), was quite different. Prior to this rebirth they never looked at their album. Now they replay it over and over again on their DVD slideshow.

So, I’m going to declare February RESTORATION MONTH!

If you have an old wedding album, childhood, family portraits, or any type of photos, bring them to me. Restoring & transferring your hard copies to digital files and sharing them with your loved ones is the only way to protect the longevity of your memories. If you have a wedding anniversary, birthday party, or mother/father holidays coming up, a digital DVD of your old photographs will make a terrific gift!

If you are unable to view slideshows in your feed reader, click here to view!